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THE GOOD AND THE BAD 



IN THE 



ROMAN CATHOLIC CHTJBCH : 



IS THAT CHURCH TO BE DESTROYED OR REFORMED? 



A LETTER PROM ROME 



BY REV. HENRY M. FIELD. 




NEW-YORK : 

G. P. PUTNAM, 155 BROADWAY. 

1849. 



J> 



nt 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, 

By HENRY M. FIELD, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
District of New-York. 



THE GOOD AND THE BAD 

IN THE 

EOMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 



Rome, May, 1848. 

I feel alternately admiration and disgust for the Roman 
Catholic Church. And if any man tells me that this is in- 
consistent, I answer that it is this very inconsistency which is 
alone consistent with truth. Human institutions are not 
wholly good or wholly bad. And he who praises or blames 
without discrimination is sure to be wrong. 

Protestants generally will not admit that there is any 
thing good in the Roman Church. They can never look at 
the Romish dogmas and worship as a Catholic does, even 
long enough to judge of them. To do so would almost re- 
quire a transmigration of souls. I have tried to lay aside 
this prejudice as far as possible, and to look around with ah 
impartial eye. I see enough of evil in this poor world to 
make me willing to recognize the least appearances of 
good. 



4 HOLY WEEK 

The Holy Week is just past. This is the season of the 
year at which the Catholic Church fixes the date of our 
Lord's death, and puts in requisition all the pomp of its cere- 
monies to celebrate his last week on earth, from his entry 
into Jerusalem to his death and resurrection. The idea is a 
beautiful one, of recalling at a fixed anniversary the closing 
scenes of our Saviour's life ; and here at least, thought 1^ 
I shall witness the spirit of Catholic devotion. 

I prepared myself, by reading the explanation by Catho- 
lic writers of the ceremonies of Holy Week, and when Palm 
Sunday came — on which the Pope blesses palm branches, in 
commemoration of Christ's entry into Jerusalem, when the 
people strewed palms in the way — I set out for St. Peter's, 
trying to divest myself of every particle of bigotry, and in a 
mood to be edified with any thing that had the semblance of 
devotion. 

But what did I see % The Pope riding to church in a coach 
with six horses, and followed by a body of cavalry. He was 
carried into St. Peter's on men's shoulders, and after a while 
carried out again, and then brought in again, and then car- 
ried out again. The Cardinals advanced to the foot of the 
throne, arrayed in the most costly silks and furs, and knelt 
to kiss his robe, and receive the palm which he blessed. 
The whole had the air of a holiday show, and with the music, 
which kept up a constant blast, produced about the same 
dramatic effect as a well-acted and well-sung opera. Not a 
single thing had on my mind a religious impression. The 
only thing at all impressive was the kneeling of the Swiss 
Guards on the pavement at a passage in the chant which 



IN ROME. 5 

described the Saviour expiring ; and even this was done with 
such a flourish that it made nobody serious. It was from 
beginning to end a show, and so Catholics as well as Protes- 
tants seemed to regard it. None of that solemn stillness 
which reigns in our Protestant places of worship was there. 
I felt sad to think that this was the homage addressed to 
God. 

The other services of the week produced the same im- 
pression as the first. On Thursday the Pope washed the 
feet of thirteen pilgrims in imitation of Christ at the last 
supper. Yet this act of apparent humility was somewhat 
diminished by the dozen assistants who surrounded him. (I 
know there were so many, for I counted them.) The Pope 
afterwards waited on these pilgrims at dinner ; that is, he 
placed on the table the dishes which the Bishops and other 
high dignitaries on their knees handed to him ! 

On the whole, the impression of Holy Week was very 
unfavorable. I turned with pain from seeing the adoration 
of relics, and hearing the Miserere chanted by eunuchs. 
The experience of the week made me feel more than ever 
that Romanism was an empty shell, a form once perhaps ani- 
mated by faith, but to-day a withered mummy, from which 
the soul had long since departed. It is a sublime architec- 
ture. It is a mighty tradition. But it is not a Religion. 
Such, said I, is Romanism at Rome, and all the efforts of 
Oxford men in England, or of Mr. Brownson in America, to 
galvanize this dead body, may produce some convulsive 
twitchings at those extremities, but can never send back life 
to the heart. 



I 

6 VESPERS — NUNS SINGING. 

Such was my first impression. Truth now compels me 
to say that I have attended other services of the Catholic 
Church less ostentatious, which have had upon me a very 
different effect. I go often to the Convent of Trinita dei 
Monti, to hear the nuns sing their evening hymn, and it 
would be quite'impossible for me to describe the effect upon 
my feelings. I listen till my heart dissolves. It seems as if 
some choir of the blessed were chanting a celestial hymn ; 
as if that tender and plaintive melody, which comes to bear 
up my soul from gloom, were the distant music of angels. 

Ofttimes too, at such an hour, I see the most simple and 
earnest devotion kneeling on the pavement of the church. 
I ask no questions, but there is a look which tells me that 
the thoughts of the worshipper ai*e fixed on something be- 
yond this world. A look of sorrow and yet of peace. And 
often I say to myself, as I see men and women who have 
evidently led a life of extreme poverty and suffering, kneel- 
ing on the church floor, " While we sneer at their worship, 
these poor beings are ascending to heaven." 

The contrast of these different services produces in my 
mind a confused feeling in regard to the Roman Church. I 
see evil there, but I see good also. And if I denounce the 
one, I will not deny or disparage the other. 

Besides the fact stares me in the face that this Church 
has produced innumerable Saints — some of an order of saint- 
liness which has hardly a parallel in the world's history. If 
she has had a Cesar Borgia, she has had also a Charles Bor- 
romeo, a Francis Xavier, a Pascal and Fenelon. I often go 
to the Church of Jesus in this city to muse at the tomb of 



CATHOLIC SAINTS. 7 

Ignatius Loyola. This simple inscription is written over his 
body, Ad majorem Dei gloriam. Was ever epitaph more 
simple or just ? And shall I deny that such a man was a 
Christian, when his heroic self-denial, his voluntary poverty 
and labors, put to shame the Protestant world ? 

Farther observation has led me to modify still further my 
views of the Roman Catholic Church ; to discover in it many 
things beautiful, of happy influence, and worthy of imitation. 
To these I am happy to bear a tribute of admiration. Our 
condemnation as Protestants of what is bad would come 
with a better grace, and produce more effect, if we showed 
a readiness to appreciate and acknowledge what is good. 
There are several pleasing aspects which I wish particularly 
to notice : 

First — The Catholic Church eminently cherishes the feel- 
ing of Reverence. Its history, its associations, its very archi- 
tecture, contribute to this. Its age of itself makes it venera- 
ble, and supplies many touching associations which Protestant- 
ism wholly wants. It has been the faith of a large part of man- 
kind for eighteen centuries. Millions have staked their eter- 
nal salvation upon its truth, and supported the agonies of life 
and of death upheld by its hope. They have found in its com- 
munion comfort, joy and peace. A cloud of witnesses seems 
to fill the arches of every cathedral, and stretch forward like 
a shining column into heaven. 

Often, as I stand at twilight in some old cathedral, lean- 
ing against a column which has stood while centuries have 
been rushing past it, — just as the last rays of the dying day 



8 THE CHURCH CHERISHES REVERENCE 

gleam through the stained windows, shedding "a dim religious 
light" on the marble monuments and the kneeling worship- 
pers, and as the vesper hymn is filling the vault above, — 

" Dimly on my soul streams the light of ages." 

Then more than at any other hour I feel myself united to all 
the living and the dead — a unit in that mighty host which is 
hurrying to the unknown, yet inseparable from the rest. I 
think how many have come up here to drink the waters of 
life and gone away to die in peace. On this pavement gene- 
rations have knelt, and looked up to heaven, and now " the 
sheeted dead " seem still to walk here. An invisible bond 
unites me to all the human souls that are kneeling at my 
side. I should feel guilty if I dared to disown my brother- 
hood to them. I feel that we are one family, one great broth- 
erhood of guilt and misery, and that I can unite in their 
prayers. 

Again — The arrangements of the Catholic Worship seem 
to me peculiarly fitted to nourish a spirit of devotion. Its 
churches are open at all hours, and my observation is that 
I have seldom entered a Catholic church that I did not find 
some individual — some poor man or woman — absorbed in 
prayer — and often with a look so eloquent of woe, and yet of 
that peace which passeth understanding, that I have wished 
that I might receive the same consolation. 

The hours of devotion are chosen with a wise discern- 
ment of the periods at which man is naturally disposed to re- 
flection and to prayer — to thoughts of a better world. The 
Church celebrates the rising and the setting of the sun with 



AND DEVOTION. 9 

her matin and vesper hymns. As the sunset touches with 
its last rays the mountain tops, the shepherd on the hills and 
in the valleys hears the evening bells that call him to prayer. 
How touching is that music of the Convent bell ringing 
among the mountains ! The air seems hushed and holy. 
Nature unites in the worship of man. 

" Blessed be the hour, 
The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft 

Have felt that moment in its fullest power 
Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft, 

While swung the deep bell in the distant tower, 
Or the faint, dying day-hymn stole aloft, 

And not a breath crept through the rosy air, 

And yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer." 

The Catholic Church shows wonderful tact and knowledge 
of human nature in its use of the Poetry of Religion — archi- 
tecture, painting, and music. This is a most important part 
of man's nature, and it is a divine skill that touches these 
delicate springs of feeling, and leads the mind to God by 
the gentle methods of Art. I would be careful of making 
too much of the Poetry of Religion — for I know that mere 
poetic sensibility, the gratification of an artistic taste, unless 
blended with deeper emotions, has a slender influence on 
the life of man. Yet, with those stronger feelings in action, 
these nicer sensibilities are important to the graceful mould- 
ing of the character. And while I am suspicious of a 
Religion which addresses itself solely to the imagination, 
I cannot but think a Religion very defective which does not 
address the sense of beauty at all. The beauty of the Cath- 



10 CLOISTERS FOR RETIREMENT. 

olic Worship is therefore so far a valid argument in favor 
of the Catholic Church. It is to its praise that it knows 
how to subsidize the gratification of taste — the emotion of 
beauty, to devotional feeling, to the quickening and exalta- 
tion of man's religious nature. 

Another winning feature of the Catholic Church is the 
repose which its numerous institutions offer to the weary — 
the broken heart. Protestantism has no cloisters — no places 
of holy retreat, to which a man broken with the labors of life, 
or with private grief, or sick of the selfishness of the world, 
can retire to pass his last days in devotion, and in commun- 
ion with the wise and good of other days — or in labors of 
charity and mercy. 

To an old man — if without children, or if they are 
dead — or his lot is hard, or his life unhappy — I can con- 
ceive of nothing more grateful than such a retreat as he 
approaches the evening of life. There the seductions or the 
treachery of the world cannot reach him. He is secluded 
from its occupations, and heavy, wearying care. Hours of 
study alternate with the gentle religious excitement of matins 
and vespers. His life has been full of sorrow, and now he 
finds a soothing repose in the monastery which creates a 
solitude in the heart of a city — the stillness of its paved court 
broken only by the murmur of a fountain, and its long cor- 
ridors echoing only to the footfall of some passing solitary 
who has retired from the world. In the lonely imprisoned 
cell, the lamp suspended from the ceiling lets fall its light 
on the bald head of the aged pilgrim bending over the pages 
of St. Augustine, 

" The scrolls that teach him to live and die." 



CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS. 11 

In former ages monastic institutions had a high literary- 
utility. Never have I seen a monastery afar on the top of 
a mountain, glowing in the sunset, without recognizing grate- 
fully a luminary of the Middle Ages — one of those stations 
along which the torch of knowledge was transmitted from 
summit to summit while the world beneath lay buried in 
darkness.* The importance of these institutions to learning 
is lessened, now that the sun shines down into the valleys as 
well as on the hill tops. But as places of religious seclusion, 
I cannot but wish that there were some such retreats in Pro- 
testant lands to which a man, who has nothing more on earth 
to live for, could retire to calm the fever of his mind, and 
prepare to go to God. 

The Catholic Church deserves also great honor for her 
charitable institutions. She has erected monasteries in 
lonely and almost inaccessible places ; on the top of the 
Alps and of Mount Sinai ; amid perpetual snows and frightful 
deserts, to extend assistance and relief to lost or helpless 
travellers. I walked over the Pass of the Simplon with an 
Episcopal clergyman, and I remember well his animated 
exclamation, as we first caught sight of the Hospice on the 
top of the mountain, " There is what the Catholic Church 
does !" And I confess I could resist any abstract argument 
better than the Monks of St. Bernard, or the Sisters of 
Charity. 

* Readers of the New Englander may recognize in this paragraph 
the same remarks on the Monastic life which I have made before in that 
Review in an article on the Italian Revolutions of 1848. 



12 HOSPITALS. SISTERS OF CHARITY. 

I believe no church is so faithful to the sick and to 
orphans as the Church of Rome. In hospitals the Sisters 
of Charity are the most faithful watchers, performing the 
most menial services with their own hands ; and much as I 
dislike their vows, I can never see these sisters pass in the 
streets of our cities without a feeling of pitying admiration.* 

When a city is visited by plague or cholera the Catholic 
priest has the feeling of a soldier in the hour of danger. If his 
people ever need him, they need him then. And the priest 
never deserts his flock, while the Protestant minister often 
flees with precipitation. 

No other church is so faithful to the poor, and to this I 
ascribe the hold which she has on the Irish peasantry and on 
the masses wherever her faith prevails. She has accom- 

* It is perhaps not generally known, that within a few years past 
Protestants both in England and France have established institutions 
very similar to the orders of Sisters of Charity and Mercy. Such or- 
ganizations for the care of the sick, and for the education of poor or or- 
phan children, are now in operation In London and Paris. 

And what is there absurd in it ? Why might there not be an order 
of Sisters of Charity among Protestants — a society of unmarried females, 
devoted to teaching or to the care of the sick ? At present there is 
hardly any way in which such a person can make herself useful. She 
is flippantly styled " an old maid," and if she attempt to do good out 
of her family, she is said to be stepping out of her sphere. 

The want of such an order has been felt even in America. What 
is Miss Catharine Beecher's army of young ladies sent to the West to 
teach, or Mrs. Farnham's expedition to California, but a Protestant 
order of Sisters of Charity,— except that they are not bound by a relig- 
ious vow not to be married ! 



CARE OF THE SICK AND THE POOR, 18 

plished that greatest task of any religion — to make it pene- 
trate the lower strata of society — to make it sink down into 
the ocean of popular ideas and affections. 

In countries where the Catholic Church is dominant, 
Religion has at least some hold on all classes. The lowest, 
the most degraded, have some touch of religious sentiment 
about them, some veneration for sacred things, some sensi- 
bility to holy influences. The Irish peasant, the Sicilian 
beggar, still keep some fraction of Christian faith even in 
circumstances fitted to cast down and brutalize human 
nature. They do not sink to such brutish degradation as the 
same class in Protestant countries. They are not such 
animals as the low population of London, the haggard 
wretches of St. Giles. It appears to me that it is the highest 
triumph of the Catholic religion that it has infused some 
touch of heavenly love and hope into such stern and savage 
breasts. 

Eternal honor to the Catholic Church for this — that she 
makes no distinction between the rich and the poor ! In that 
church, as before God, all men are on a level. In the im- 
mense multitude that prostrate themselves on the floor of the 
Cathedral, the rich and the poor, the prince and the laboring 
man, kneel side by side, and feel that God is the maker of 
them all. The thought of their Creator and of their immor- 
tality that rushes over them at such a moment, makes them 
equal. 

To all conditions of men the Church administers the 
same sacraments, from baptism in childhood to extreme unc- 
tion in the hour of dissolution. When the poor man is taken 



14 EFFECT UPON MANNERS. 

sick, the priest is at his bedside to administer the consolations 
of religion ; and over the departing soul of the poorest of her 
children, the Church pronounces her last benediction, " Go 
forth, O christian soul ! from this world, in the name of God 
the father Almighty who created thee ; in the name of Jesus 
Christ, the Son of God, who suffered for thee ; in the name 
of the Holy Ghost, who sanctified thee — When thy soul shall 
depart from thy body, let the resplendent multitude of the 
angels meet thee ; let the triumphant army of the martyrs, 
clad in their white robes, conduct thee." 

Being pervaded by the same sentiment of religion, there 
is a sympathy between all classes where all belong to the 
same communion, which in our divided Protestant communi- 
ties does not exist. The tendency of sects is to isolate a 
man from his neighbor, to make him selfish, clannish and 
proud. 

It is perhaps owing to this difference of religion, that 
there is much less of aristocratic pride and assumption in 
Catholic countries. Their religion has at least a softening 
and beautiful effect upon manners. In persons of the highest 
rank they are softened by a courtesy which the burly Eng- 
lishman, or the purse-proud American, never knows. I be- 
lieve there is more pride, more insolence in England, than 
on the whole continent of Europe. I do not suppose that 
their religion has produced this pride, but it certainly jias not 
prevented it. 

Protestantism seems to have no machinery to reach the 
poorer classes. The most that has been done in England or 
in this country, has been done by the Methodists. But the 



PROTESTANTISM NEGLECTS THE POOR. 15 

spirit of our churches generally is worldly, self-seeking. 
They court the rich. The ambition of a Protestant minister 
even in democratic America — is to be the head of an aristo- 
cratic congregation. The churches themselves are a kind 
of religious aristocracy. In New- York for example, what a 
rivalry as to which congregation shall be most exclusive ! 
The very buildings in which they worship are constructed as 
if on purpose to shut out the poor. They are arranged just 
like a theatre, in boxes, which are sold to the highest bidder, 
and all are held at such a price that the poor are almost as 
a matter of necessity excluded. 

I may be wanting in reverence, but to me a fashionable 
church is about as sacred a place as a fashionable theatre. 
One is as much devoted to the god of this world as the other. 
Both are fitted up with gay or gaudy decorations. Both 
resorted to by very fashionable audiences for curiosity or 
display. The principal feeling excited or gratified is poor 
pitiful human vanity. In the church, as in the theatre, the 
audience are entertained for an hour with public speak- 
ing, in which there is an occasional religious reflection or 
sentiment, about as solemn, though by no means as eloquent, 
as the moralizing of Hamlet. From both places the public, 
or the poorer part of it, are strictly excluded. 

How Christianity is to penetrate the whole mass of 
society by the agency of such churches surpasses my com- 
prehension. Sad would be the fate of the world, if its moral 
condition or happiness depended on these fashionable Chris- 
tians, who are giddy with folly and dissipation half the year, 
but — religiously abstain from the opera during Lent ! 



16 FAITH AGAINST 

Lastly, I honor the Catholic Church for this — that it has 
held inflexibly to its high ground, that Christianity is a divine 
religion ; not merely what Mr. Emerson or Mr. Parker thinks^ 
or what any body supposes ; but that it is the eternal truth of 
God i not a system of philosophy like that of Plato, or a mere 
classification of natural laws which man has discovered, but a 
revelation from the invisible world, which the Son of God has 
come down from heaven to give to,mankind. We have been 
so long trying to explain every thing in the Christian Religion, 
from a wish to make its truth and evidence palpable to all, 
that we have insensibly let go the sublimity and grandeur of 
this mighty faith. We have sought to reduce its mysteries 
to the level, not only of the highest, but of the most vulgar 
comprehension ; to classify its stupendous facts under the 
ordinary course of nature. Some have gone so far as to 
reduce Christ to be a mere man, his miracles to be merely 
natural phenomena, and his teachings to be simply the wise 
sayings of a virtuous philosopher. Christianity is merely 
the reiteration of those general laws of the mind which we 
knew before, or might have known, from our own conscious- 
ness. When we have reached this point, what place is left 
for faith, or for any thing that had been before called reli- 
gion ? What need of temples, and altars, and anthems to 
bear up the soul on high ? The church becomes merely a 
hall for public lectures, and human flattery and compliment 
take the place of the prostration of man before his Maker. 

I do not wonder that some minds, when they reach this 
lowest point of belief, or disbelief, rush back from it into the 
unquestioning faith of the Church of Rome. A dark, half- 



RATIONALISM. 17 

understood faith, mysterious yet sublime, is better than total 
unbelief, than universal doubt. As they turn away sickened 
from the miserable transcendental philosophy of the day, 
which reasons God and all spiritual existences out of the 
world ; which knows no being but man — the faith of Rome 
presents itself as a refuge. There is an attraction in its 
mysteries — there is a solemnity in that darkness of the future 
and the invisible, which the Catholic Church professes to illu- 
mine but dimly, as with a few faint stars twinkling in the 
midnight sky, which casts over the soul a spell as deep and 
awful as the shadow of eternity. 

Better even an excess of veneration and belief than a total 
abnegation of faith. Better even for the intellect, for the 
arts, for poetry and eloquence, which can only live in an 
atmosphere of faith ; and infinitely better for the character. 
Superstition may be a weakness, but it is the error, though of 
an ignorant, yet of a sincere and truth-loving mind. Skepti- 
cism, still farther from the truth, is the error of an under- 
standing but half instructed, yet conceited and flippant. 
Better any extreme of credulity than this, the laugh and gib- 
ber of a low, licentious, sneering infidelity. 

The Catholic Church, I think, deserves the thanks of all 
Christendom for this — that it has held so firmly that Chris- 
tianity is a divine religion, the direct revelation of God, and 
eternal and immutable fis its Author. Standing on this foun- 
dation, that church asserts the majesty of religion above all 
the interests of this world, in face of the secularizing influ- 
ences of a commercial, and the sneers and scoffs of a skep- 
tical age. 



18 IS THE CHURCH OF ROME 

And she is not ashamed to bear her cross before the world ! 
I confess I like those popular signs of its faith, crucifixes and 
oratories by the wayside, which are the landmarks of a 
Catholic country. I once looked on all such things as super- 
stition ; but now they produce on me rather a pleasant im- 
pression. I like, as I enter a foreign country, to be greeted 
with some token that I am entering a Christian land. A 
Protestant country you may travel through, from one end to 
the other, without meeting a single symbol of the national 
faith. You see buildings devoted to religious worship, but 
whether Christian temples, or Mohammedan mosques, or He- 
brew synagogues, no visible sign tells. But over every 
Catholic church a silent cross proclaims whose name they 
bear. Along the highways stand a thousand shrines like so 
many fountains, inviting the pilgrim to stop and drink of living 
waters. I confess I love to see these things ; as I travel 
through strange kingdoms, to behold here and there the 
blessed symbol of my faith standing in a grove of pines, or 
on some headland overlooking the deep ; and as I see it stand- 
ing at the head of those swelling mounds, which mark where 
we all must lie, it gives me a firmer hold of my immortality. 
It seems to say, u I am the resurrection and the life : he that 
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." 

Ought we then to desire to see a Church, in which there is 
so much that is good, wholly destroyed, or only reformed ? 

- Many Protestants will say at once, " The whole Romish 
Church must be rooted up; Babylon must be destroyed. " 



TO BE DESTROYED OR REFORMED ? 19 

I confess I do not feel so. They seem to think that the over- 
throw of the Papacy would at once inaugurate the Mil- 
lennium. But this is a very wild expectation. The more 
probable result would be to leave the greater part of Europe 
without any religion. It would be the Millennium of Paine's 
Age of Reason. Were the question between Romanism and 
Protestantism, I should certainly prefer the latter as a purer 
form of Christianity. The most delightful Christian society 
into which I was introduced in Europe, was in Geneva, in 
that limited Evangelical circle to which Merle D'Aubigne 
belongs. I wish I could see such faith and such fruits 
every where in Europe. But when the alternative is Ro- 
manism or No Religion, I must pause and consider before 
I help to tear it down. 

I must doubt also very much the expediency of the ef- 
forts practised by many zealous persons to convert individual 
Catholics to the Protestant faith. It is a very delicate matter 
to tamper with the early religious belief of any mind. The 
danger is that in rooting up the old faith, you will destroy 
faith in any religion. You may tear an oak out of the earth, 
if you use violence enough, but you can never make another 
oak grow there as vigorous as the first. And in the case of 
persons who are weak and ignorant, as the Irish servant girls 
in our families, can any thing be more cruel than to attack 
them with arguments against their religion ? We may set 
Christianity before them in its simplicity, and let them draw 
their own conclusions. But any direct attack on their 
church by argument, or by ridicule, does them no good. It 
does a positive injury. It unsettles their old religious belief, 



20 IS IT A TRUE CHURCH ? 

but gives them nothing in its place. It would moderate the 
exultation of our friends at the conversion of Romanists, if 
they knew that for one Catholic who becomes a Protestant, a 
dozen become Infidels. I dare not attempt a course of per- 
suasion which may push a fellow being out into the dark 
night of skepticism. I had rather hope for his salvation in 
a church, which, with all its errors, still confesses, " I be- 
lieve in God the Father Almighty, and in His only Son 
Jesus Christ our Lord." 

The whole question turns here, Is the Roman Church to 
he regarded as a portion of the Church of Christ ? If so, 
it is of God, and cannot be destroyed. And why should any 
Protestant hesitate to allow that it is a true Christian Church ? 
Its doctrines are substantially the same as ours. They are 
the common faith of the whole Christian world. We have 
derived our faith from them. I think all the Christian 
churches of the world owe a debt of gratitude to the Catho- 
lic Church for having preserved the body of Christian Truth 
through so many centuries. To that Church we owe almost 
all the religious truth that is at present in the world. This 
is not enough considered by Protestants. I do not deny nor 
palliate its abuses and corruptions. Yet underneath all this 
rubbish lies that Catholic Faith which is the most precious 
deposit which ancient times have transmitted to us. One 
has but to compare the Roman Missal and Breviary with 
the Episcopal Prayer Book to see how closely one is copied 
from the other. The devotional writings of Catholics incul- 
cate the same virtues as ours, a devout life, self-denial, for- 
giveness, and humility. Let any good man read Thomas a 



WHAT THINGS TO BE REFORMED. 21 

Kempis' Imitation of Christ, and if his heart refuses fellow- 
ship with such men, I must regard his own as but an in- 
different Christianity. 

I am disposed therefore to look favorably on any signs of 
life in the Roman Catholic Church, and to hope to see it re- 
animated by being reformed, rather than to see it totally de- 
stroyed. And if God has raised up the enlightened man, 
who at present fills the Papal chair, to be the means of such 
reformation, I think the whole Christian world must hail it 
with joy. 

What then are the things to be reformed ? The doctrines, 
as I have said, are substantially those held by all Christian 
communions. And stripped of the traditions which have 
been added to them, these doctrines will stand always. 
They inculcate reverence towards God, faith in Christ, and 
the practice of all piety and virtue. These truths surely 
need no reformation. 

What then does need it ? 

First — The Romish worship. This is overloaded with 
forms to such an extent that the spiritual part of religion is 
in danger of being smothered. These forms need to be re- 
duced in number and simplified. 

I know indeed that some things in the Catholic worship, 
which appear absurd to us, may be for those who under- 
stand and can enter into them, both proper and edifying. 
Thus to a stranger who strolls for the first time into a Catho- 
lic Church, when the priest is celebrating mass, it appears 
mere mummery. But the Catholic perceives in this a sym- 
bolical representation of the agony and death of Christ, 



22 EXCESS OF FORMS THE MASS. 

When the priest enters and advances to the altar, that act is 
intended to represent the entrance of Christ into the garden. 
When he elevates the host above his head, that represents 
the lifting up of Christ on the cross. The significance of the 
whole service lies in the idea of Sacrifice, which it is intended 
to set forth in a visible form. Those who regard that as the 
central idea of Christianity may indeed have other and valid 
objections to the Mass, but they cannot say, after knowing 
these things, that it is a service without meaning. 

Still it appears to me that these forms suit better an ignor- 
ant than an enlightened age. The Romish Church has cop- 
ied in its worship the ceremonies of the Jewish temple. The 
rich vestments of the priests, the form of a sacrifice retained 
in the Eucharist, the swinging of incense, and the lamps ever 
burning on the altar, are the same. Like the old ceremonial 
economy, it may have had its use in an ignorant age. When 
the art of Printing was unknown, and not one in a thousand 
ever read a book, it was perhaps necessary that Religion 
should speak to the eye by statues and paintings and an im- 
posing ritual. But when mankind are educated to more 
spiritual conceptions of God and of his worship, it is revers- 
ing the order of nature to go back to the outward forms which 
suited the infancy of the world. These artificial aids are 
then clogs to devotion. The leading-strings of the child are 
a lion's net to the man. 

It was from this excess of pomp that the services of 
Holy Week were so repulsive to me. When I enter a quiet 
place of prayer, and listen to 

" Those strains that sweet in Zion glide," 



SERVICE IN A DEAD LANGUAGE. 23 

my soul takes wings. But the gorgeous pageantry of St. 
Peter's permitted no such simple feeling. My senses were 
dazzled and bewildered, but my heart was not touched, while 
a simple choir of nuns, singing their vesper hymn, brought 
me back into an atmosphere of devotion, and melted me to 
tears. 

Again — The service is at present performed in a dead 
language. This is a great wrong to the common people. 
When I hear the priests chanting their service in Latin, run- 
ning through with the most solemn rites in a language which 
the poor do not understand, I think of what Paul said, " In 
the church I had rather speak five words with my understand- 
ing" — that is, intelligibly — " that by my voice I might teach 
others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue." 

Besides this, there have been in the course of time append- 
ed to the devotions of the Catholics many things which are 
puerile, and which, being connected with Religion, tend to 
bring the general cause of Christianity into contempt. Such 
are its absurd legends of miracles, wrought by the bones of 
some old saint, its frivolous ceremonies, and its veneration 
for relics. I had a specimen of this the day after I 
entered Rome. The whole city was in motion for the per- 
formance of a great ceremony. And for what? Why it 
seems there was a^kull, that had long been kept at St. Peter's, 
which was said to be the head of St. Andrew the Apostle ! 
This skull a few weeks since was stolen. Searches and 
prayers to God were made for its recovery. It was at last 
found, and now all Rome was to be turned out to carry back 
the head in solemn procession to St. Peter's. I went to the 



24 RELICS CONFESSION. 

church and saw the whole display. The troops were brought 
out; cannon were fired from the Castle of St. Angelo ; and 
there was a procession of priests that I was afraid would 
never end — all the orders of Monks that were ever invented 
— Franciscans and Dominicans, Benedictines and Capuchins, 
and barefooted Carmelites ; and then the officiating priests of 
the different churches of Rome. After these came the head 
of the saint, followed by the Pope on foot, and the Bishops 
and Cardinals, and numerous state dignitaries. Religious 
services were continued for three days.* 

Away with such childish follies from a Church which 
claims to be Divine. 

Another thing which needs to be restricted or abolished, 
is the practice of confession . This seems to me a very dan- 
gerous thing. To a pure mind, a sensitive, trembling, fear- 
ful spirit, like Pascal's, I can conceive that it would afford 
the greatest relief to unbosom his feelings to a spiritual guide, 
and to hear that guide, acting as he believes with a divine 
authority, say, " The Lord pardon and absolve thee from all 
thy sins." 

But few minds are of this ethereal temper, or of a nature 
so self-distrustful that they need to be reassured by a priest 
of the Divine forgiveness. 

In the case of others, more selfish or^vilful, I fear that 
this easy absolution is only an indulgence to sin. Many a 
bad man does wrong with a light heart, thinking that he 
can get a release from the Divine penalty by whispering into 

* This fact I have mentioned before in correspondence with the 
New-York Observer. 



PRIESTS FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 25 

the ear of the priest. Confession relieves his conscience 
altogether too easily. And in this way, I fear it has often a 
positively demoralizing tendency. Besides, it gives an im- 
pression, which is utterly opposed both to reason and re- 
ligion—that a man has power of himself to forgive sins. 
The priest may explain this away, by saying that he only 
speaks as the minister of God, or pronounces pardon condi- 
tionally ; still the false impression will remain in ignorant 
minds. They cannot make nice distinctions. And what a 
terrible power this gives the priest over the man who has 
confided to him all the secrets of his life — the secrets perhaps 
of his family as well as of his own soul. These are things 
not to be told to any man. There is a Holy of Holies in 
every man's heart which no stranger has a right to penetrate. 
They are things secret and sacred — which the heart reserves 
to itself and to God. 

Another great abuse is the forced celibacy of the priest- 
hood, producing, as it does, scandalous profligacy. Of this 
the priests in Rome itself are melancholy proofs. 

In particular, the different orders of monks need to be 
thoroughly reformed. These orders have grown into an 
abuse from their great number and negligent morals. Their 
original design was pure, and the conception beautiful. 
But institutions with large endowments, which support their 
members in a life of learned leisure, naturally attract to them 
many who seek mere exemption from labor. The effect of 
the Establishment in England is the same as of the monasteries 
in Italy — to support a swarm of spiritual drones. If there 
2 



26 THE MONKS. 

have been more in Italy than in England, it is because there 
have been fewer occupations of a different character opened 
to young men. Where there is little encouragement to enter 
other professions — the law, or medicine, or the army, or into 
commercial pursuits, and no opportunity whatever to enter 
into politics — the church or the monastery seems the only 
resort for men of high family or education, or of a literary 
or religious taste. But the number attached to these orders 
has become so enormous as to be a great burden to the state- 
But a few months ago it was said that there were ninety- 
eight thousand ecclesiastics in Naples alone, including twenty- 
five thousand monks and twenty-six thousand nuns. This 
number will be rapidly diminished. Young men will be 
tutned aside to the more exciting pursuits of politics or war ; 
and on the first occasion the property of the convents and 
monasteries will be seized, to defray the expenses of a great 
struggle for Italian Independence. 

The morals, too, of the monks are often a scandal to the 
church. So that these orders will soon either have to be 
abolished altogether, or some new St. Francis must arise to 
reform their discipline. 

And then the great sin of this Church against God and 
man is its impious assumption to be the sole dispenser of the 
forgiveness and condemnation of the Almighty ; to hold the 
keys of heaven and hell, and to have the power to open and 
shut the gates of everlasting happiness on mankind. This is 
usurping the throne of the Almighty, and establishing a 
perpetual reign of terror. 



THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ALREADY CHANGED. 27 

These abuses I believe the present Pope sees as clearly 
as any man living. No doubt he is heart and soul a Catholic. 
But he sees the character of the age in which he lives, and 
the necessity of bringing the institutions of church and state 
into harmony with it. Hence his political reforms, so manly 
and heroic, with the whole College of Cardinals against him. 
He has already got rid of the Jesuits. And I hope that 
his noble character and the providence of God will lead him 
on till he has effected a complete reformation of the Roman 
Church. 

I anticipate some movement of reform in the Church of 
Rome, because by that alone can she hold her power. Where 
are her most eloquent preachers to-day ? At Rome ? No, 
at Paris. And why ? Because there the awe of Roman 
authority is gone, and nothing but the exertions of her most 
eloquent men can keep that church from perishing under 
contempt. One has but to hear Father Lacordaire at Notre 
Dame, to be satisfied that the Catholic Church is feeling 
the influence of the spirit of the age, of its enlarged tole- 
ration, and enthusiasm for liberty. Had he preached two 
centuries ago as he preaches now, he would have been burnt. 
And if Pius IX. had begun his present bold course in the 
days of Jesuit ascendency, he would have been laid to sleep 
by some course more speedy than that of nature. 

Let these men, and the powerful party in Germany, 
which calls ^loud for reform, go on with their work of recon- 
struction. Let there be, if necessary, another Council of 
Trent, to revise the whole system of Catholic doctrine and 



28 SPREAD OF ROMANISM IN AMERICA. 

discipline. Let the Roman Church, really venerable from 
her antiquity, get rid of the rubbish of superstitions which 
long centuries of darkness have accumulated upon her — 
relics, images, and dead men's bones ; let her clergy be per- 
mitted to marry, and to have sympathies in common with the 
world which they are trying to benefit ; let her really sublime 
liturgy be read in the language of the people ; and her preach- 
ers preach like Augustine and* Chrysostom ; and the world 
will render this regenerated Church due homage. 

Fears are often expressed of the prevalence of Roman- 
ism in this country, and advantage is taken of this nervous 
apprehension to excite a feeling of bitterness against that 
Church, against its priests especially, and to some extent, 
against all its members. This is cowardly, and wholly 
unworthy of men who are as confident that they are right 
as are our Protestants. 

What are they afraid of? What does this fear that Ro- 
manism will become the religion of America imply ? It im- 
plies that the good people of this land may become convinced 
that it is the true religion. But this they will not be without 
strong proof and a long trial. I ask any sober man, Are you 
afraid that you shall be so convinced ? If not, do not doubt 
that others too have common sense. People talk as though 
the Catholics were masters of some jugglery by which men 
could be bewitched out of their religious faith without know- 
ing it. But I do not helieve that I am likely to be made a 
Catholic against my own better judgment, nor that any body 
else will or can be. 



MISSIONARY SPIRIT IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 29 

The efforts which the Catholics make to extend their 
religion in this country, are no more than we should make 
if we were in their place. They are no more than we 
actually make to extend Protestantism into other countries. 
And as we claim the right everywhere to teach and to 
preach, so let us give them the same privilege. We think 
it hard, and call it persecution, when our missionaries are 
assailed with coarse and abusive epithets on entering a new 
country. Let us regard at least the rules of common po- 
liteness, if we do not those of Christian charity, when stran- 
gers present themselves on our shores. We need not fear 
that truth will ever suffer in a fair field. A good cause 
does not need to be defended in a bad temper, nor by unfair 
means. Nor does any man who is perfectly sure that he 
is right need to fortify his position by working himself into a 
passion, or by calling up his prejudices and religious hatred. 

Besides, these exertions of the Catholics are perhaps 
subserving to some extent the general cause of Christian- 
ity. Many of our good people sigh even at the erection 
of a house of worship for Catholics. — But ought we not 
rather to rejoice that the poor emigrants who are flocking 
to our shores can have churches of their own faith, where 
they will be under some Christian influences ? Suppose 
there were no such churches, what would become of our 
Irish and German population ? They would never show 
their heads- in our churches. They would be left to go 
astray without any religious restraint whatever. All holy 
influences withdrawn, they would become brutalized. They 
2* 



30 REVIVAL IN ALL CHRISTIAN COMMUNIONS. 

would sink down into low infidelity and sensualism. They 
would be carousing in grog-shops on the Sabbath instead of 
kneeling before the altar. Let our Protestant friends con- 
sider the alternative. 

There appears to have been within the last fifty years a 
revival of activity in all the communions of the Christian 
world. It began in the last century with the Wesley ans in 
England, and extended to other religious bodies in that 
country and in this. 

Those who have scanned closely the Puseyite movement 
in England know, that however well or ill devised, it origin- 
ated in the purest desire to raise the standard of Religion in 
the Church of England. Both Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman 
are men, not only of vast learning, but of uncommon sanctity 
of life. 

The Church of Rome has shown of late years an activity 
in sending missionaries into all parts of the world, such as 
she has not displayed, since the disciples of Loyola penetrat- 
ed China and Japan. In one view at least this is a grati- 
fying fact, as it evinces a degree of vitality, of spiritual 
life and zeal, which few Protestants believed to exist in the 
Church of Rome. 

The question then of the ascendency of the Catholic or 
Protestant religion in this country lies here ; (and here I 
am willing to leave it) ; — Whoso, in this strife of religions, 
shall show the most practical, self-denying Christianity, they 
are the true Church, and God will give the continent to them. 
Here is opportunity to' prove our superior claim to be con- 



WHAT SHALL BE THE RELIGION OF AMERICA 1 31 

sidered Christians, and the true Church, not by abstract ar- 
guments, but by good works. The Church of Rome throws 
a challenge to Protestantism ; " Show me thy faith without 
thy works ; and I will show thee my faith by my works." 

If then Catholics show greater self-denial than Protes- 
tants ; if they are content to bear privation and contempt, 
while we idle in luxury and sloth ; if their priests are wil- 
ling to be poor and despised, and to suffer incredible hard- 
ships to carry the Gospel to the tribes of Canada and among 
the Blackfeet of the Rocky Mountains, while our ministers 
in city or country, receive large salaries, and recline upon 
their ease and their reputation ; if Protestant ladies are 
carried away with fashion, while the Sisters of Charity go 
through our cities searching out the poor, tending the sick in 
hospitals, and teaching orphan children, we must expect 
that our countrymen will conclude, that that is the better 
religion which produces the better fruits. If Protestantism, 
with the advantage of having the ground pre-occupied, can* 
not muster force of argument and examples of piety enough 
to keep possession, I think we ought to rejoice to see it 
supplanted by a religion that has more vitality. God, I be- 
lieve, will act in this matter with a righteous impartiality. 
To those who undergo the most, who suffer most, and labor 
most, will God give the empire of this land. 

There is but one way to render our Protestant Chris- 
tianity unassailable. And that is, to show by our lives that 
it is the best of all Religions — that it makes men honest, kind, 
friends of the poor and the sick, free from guile, envy, deceit, 



32 RELIGIOUS ASPERITIES SOFTENED. 

and all uncharitableness. And I believe that I am doing 
service to Protestant churches by urging this fact on their 
attention. 

If our good people are fearful and trembling because 
Catholics are building so many orphan asylums, and schools 
for poor children, and hospitals, lest the gentleness and de- 
votion of the Sisters of Charity should win the hearts of all 
the friendless and suffering among us, I know of but one 
direction which will relieve their anxiety : — go and do like- 
wise. 

I write these pages in the hope to soothe the irritated feel- 
ings of at least a few Protestants towards Roman Catholics 
and their Religion. We complain much of Popish bigotry 
and intolerance. But is there not quite as much bigotry on 
our part as on theirs 1 Suspicion begets suspicion. We 
distrust them and they distrust us. Would it not be well to 
lay aside this mutual jealousy, and to treat each other with 
common courtesy as men, if not as Christians ? We might 
find some good things in them and they in us. I ask no com- 
promise of principles on the part of Catholics or Protestants. 
But only that, when one sees a good man who is not of his 
own communion, he should treat him as a good man. If 
his life be that of an humble and devout Christian, let no 
difference in forms of worship prevent a christian cordiality 
towards him. 

Religion was meant to be a bond of peace among men. 
Let us not turn it into an occasion of discord. " The relig- 
ious sentiment," says Madame De Stael, " unites men inti- 



GOOD MEN EVERYWHERE. 33 

mately with one another, when self-love and fanaticism do 
not make of it an object of jealousy and of hatred. To pray 
together — in whatever language, in whatever rite — is the 
most touching fraternity of hope and of sympathy which 
men can contract upon this earth. 55 

Is it not time that Christians should unite to banish 
bigotry from the world ; that we all should look beyond our- 
selves, and recognize goodness wherever God has caused it 
to exist, as the lover of nature discovers beauty under an 
endless variety of forms ? Shall we not rejoice that there 
is so much that is good in different communions, and claim 
kindred with them all ? 

Let us not be so hide-bound with prejudice as to refuse 
to acknowledge goodness out of our own petty sects. I 
should feel sad indeed if I thought that all the virtue of 
the world was comprised in the one communion to which I 
belong. But 

" I have wandered over many lands," 

and I have found some goodness, some piety, every where — 
some devout men and women, who believed in Christ, and 
were walking in his steps. In the Scottish glen, and on the 
moor ; in the Alpine gorge, and on those upland pastures 
where the shepherd feeds his flock, the voice of singing 
ascends to God. Yonder, down in the deep forest, where a 
solitary lamp from a cottage window twinkles through the 
darkness, an old man is at prayer ! 

" There kneeling down, to Heaven's eternal King, 
The saint, the father, and the husband prays." 



31 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

These are all members of One Church Catholic — of One 
Invisible, but Universal Communion, "the communion of 
saints." They are the scattered sheep of one fold, and 
under One Shepherd. 

The Church of God includes all the good that have lived 
on earth, and that shall live to the end of time. It is a mighty 
army, issuing out of the regions of Death, gathering out of 
every clime, and stretching into«heaven. It includes a mul- 
titude whom no man can number, both among the living and 
the dead. And sure I am, that it includes numbers in that 
great communion to which Fenelon, and Francis de Sales, and 
St. Vincent de Paul belonged, with so many other saints, in 
whom human nature appears aggrandized, and whose exam- 
ple sheds a glory, like that of the sunset, over the earth, after 
they themselves have sunk below the horizon. 



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